


holy

by lovegalore



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Changkyun centric, Fluff, M/M, Sad Changkyun, Soulmate AU, holy ; king princess, wonho centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 07:15:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15967370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovegalore/pseuds/lovegalore
Summary: He gets it, Changkyun gets it, Hoseok may not be ready to tell the world but he’s tired of lighting candles that get blown out by rain that’s cold instead of warm.





	holy

Changkyun sighs as he knocks on the glass door of Hoseok’s personal studio, he feels the weight of the tension press down on his chest while pain broods in the pit of his stomach. Hoseok hadn’t responded to his calls regarding the week of silence between the two, something the younger didn’t know why was happening. He was fed up, staying up every night worrying about where Hoseok was and how he was doing. Aching on his mornings when new pictures were released of the boy and his members smiling on their way to practice and interviews. Hoseok was just busy, that was what the boy spent the entire week telling himself. He doesn’t answer and the younger leads himself home before his pride fails him. 

It all changed when Changkyun was scrolling through his feed, eyes widening when he came across a picture someone had managed to snap of Hoseok and himself kissing on the night they spent together at the hotel. He had to admit, the picture itself was endearing, Changkyun standing on his toes to reach Hoseok’s lips while wearing the older boy’s shirt that fell just above his knees. His heart warmed momentarily, reminiscing in the love he felt for Hoseok that managed to seep out even in a picture someone had taken through fake bushes. He pressed his fingers down on the picture, rubbing over Hoseok’s face as if to feel his skin against his. 

Looking down at the comments, Changkyun frowned when he saw many of the accounts tagging Hoseok, asking if the picture was real and a few even suggesting the Hoseok had found his soulmate. Changkyun found himself becoming wrapped up in the comments, accidently clicking on Hoseok’s profile he saw that the boy had recently posted a new photo. Smiling at the picture of his boyfriend making a heart with his fingers, he began to read the caption. 

‘Don’t worry guys! Those photos aren’t real, you guys know I haven’t found my soulmate and when I do, you’ll all definitely be the first to know.’ 

And, oh. 

Changkyun didn’t feel the sob creeping it’s way up his throat before he could even begin to register himself sitting on his knees, hands fisted on the cold floor of his kitchen while he let himself cry freely. He was definitely no stranger to pain, losing people was something of a second nature and Changkyun sure as hell knew when he should cry and when he shouldn’t. 

Was he not good enough for Hoseok? 

The thought alone was debilitating enough for Changkyun to feel the urge to back to small town Michigan and pretend all his world ever could be was a field of grass and a farmhouse went unused while he traveled back up and down the dirt road every two weeks for groceries that were sold in the market a few miles away from the land. 

Changkyun wonders if he’d be able to lay down by the rose bushes and feel Hoseok’s breath on his fingertips if he wished for the color enough. The tears fall down his cheeks faster than he can wipe them away. His heart burns an ugly red that consumes the tissue around it bruising it black and blue while trying to make his hands hold something he couldn’t possibly ever carry. 

And for once, for the first time in his entire life, Changkyun prays for God to take away the color so maybe he could fall out of love without even knowing it. 

***  
Changkyun’s feet are light against the pavement as he tips down the street towards the cafe Hoseok asked to meet him at. The sun cuts through the cold air, piercing his cheek warm while his hands are tucked into the pockets of his jacket that falls just above his knees. His brown hair whipping in the air, covering his eyebrows. He curses the weather, wanting nothing more to find his way back to a field where he can lay against the ground while the rays tickle his eyes and forearms. 

These days he’s often found himself thinking about home and the way things used to be, the buzz of honeybees in the spring and the chill of winter frost that crunched under his boots. Dewy mornings met with flowers that bloomed like they were touched by some sort of heaven melted underneath a warm cup of coffee. Sleeves that rolled to forearms and skies that never turned boring, living under the thrill of another day that someone could only pray for. Rain that came pouring every summer, steamy and mixed with the promise of greener grass and a successful day that could only be finished by falling asleep in a bed you’d owned for as long as one could remember. 

(Who does he miss? Changkyun can’t figure it out. Is it home where safety is always promised because a dirt road and a cathedral that survived wars that took away more than life? Is it the field in the middle of nowhere? Was it the hollow homes that haven’t heard a whisper in decades? Is it Hoseok?) 

Changkyun finds himself right in front of the cafe, his heart stops when he sees Hoseok with a black face mask with his eyes glued to a book. Scanning the title, he notices it’s written in english, Opulent Oceans, Melanie Stiassny. His cheeks heat up instantly, the red disappearing ghostly quick when he remembers he’s angry at Hoseok. Clearing his throat, Changkyun walks towards Hoseok, briskly pulling out the chair before sitting down. 

Looking up, Hoseok almost smiles but the lines don’t reach his eyes and Changkyun can’t help but clench his fists at his sides out of frustration. The two meet each other’s eyes, intense and presumably nearly tangible. Guilt rests in the peach of Hoseok’s eyes, mixed with melancholy and borderline regret dipped in love and covered in sadness. Changkyun’s face flares, eyes angry and red, hurt and consumed with pain that tipped the line of tenderness.

The moment is interrupted by a waitress bringing two drinks, iced coffee for Hoseok and strawberry tea for Changkyun, his favorite. Hoseok pulls down his mask to thank the woman and her cheeks dust a light pink before she shyly nods. After she walks away Changkyun rolls his eyes and feels his face harden at the spike of emotion that runs its course through his body. 

Changkyun knows he shouldn’t say it, but he’s bitter and feels neglected, “Wonder is she’s your soulmate.” The words are sour and harsh, his tone coming out equally as angry. He meets Hoseok’s eyes once the sentence passes through his lips, raising his eyebrows, almost as if he’s challenging Hoseok to say something. Hoseok lets the words roll around his head before he can think of something acceptable to say, he knows he was wrong to say what he did. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say, ‘Kyun-ah.” 

Changkyun gulps and Hoseok can see the storm brewing in the younger’s eyes, peach melting into crimson while the clouds above them begin to turn gray. “It was a mistake coming here, I’m sorry Hoseok, I don’t know why I agreed to meet with you.” 

Hoseok practically jumps from the table, “I’m sorry Changkyun, I know I shouldn’t have said what I did.” 

“You think?” 

“Changkyun.. I was worried, people were starting to catch on.” 

“And?” (He gets it, Changkyun gets it, Hoseok may not be ready to tell the world but he’s tired of lighting candles that get blown out by rain that’s cold instead of warm.) Hoseok doesn’t say anything, Changkyun sighs, “All of your members, they’ve all come out with their soulmates, Jooheon and Jackson, Minhyuk and Jisoo, Hyungwon, Kihyun and Shownu. Why can’t you? Why can’t we? I don’t get it.” 

“I don’t know,” 

“I think you do Hoseok, don’t play games with me.” 

“Cause what are they going to think Changkyun?” 

“Who is they Hoseok? I don’t know who ‘they’ are because you never want to explain yourself and I can’t stand that. Tell me for once, can’t you?” 

“The world Changkyun!” Hoseok starts, “What are they going to think? When they find out that Shin Hoseok’s soulmate comes from some tiny town, just learnt Korean and is a boy for all that matters? What will the fans do, the company? I can’t just give up my whole world because you think you need me.” 

The air around them stills, Changkyun bites his lip before Hoseok can cover his mouth because he can’t believe what he just said, to his soulmate of all people. Flashes of them dancing around Hoseok’s dorm, kissing after concerts and falling asleep tucked into Hoseok mingle together. Changkyun can feel the love they’re losing, he can see it right in front of his eyes. 

“If that’s how you really feel Hoseok..” Changkyun begins to stand up, tucking his shaking back into his pockets, turning his head so he can flick the hair out of his eyes.   
m  
“Baby.. please, I’m sorry, listen to me.” 

Had it been another time, another situation and another set of words, Changkyun would’ve let his knees go weak and collapse back into the chair. Not now though, not in a million years could he see himself falling back. 

“Don’t, you’ve made yourself clear enough.” 

“Kyun, I didn’t mean it, I swear.” 

“But I think you did Hoseok, that’s okay though, I’ll be fine. If you think for a second I won’t know what to do without you, you don’t know me at all. I’ve lived for a long time without color and since it clearly doesn’t mean anything to you I think we’ll both be okay.” 

“Please, Changkyun-” 

“Call me when you have your shit figured out, I’m not going to put myself in between you and your career. We both know what you want to focus on right now, yeah? So if you don’t call, I’ll get it.”

Hoseok wants to scream after Changkyun, pull him back into his chest and whisper how sorry he was. Press the boy down into sheets and promise to never hurt him again, say that he was here, that he wasn’t leaving. He wants to sit down with the boy and hold his thighs apart while he breathes in the air that gave him color among greater things. 

To be able to let the words leave his mouth is something Hoseok yearns for, bring him into a garden and tell him all about the spring Changkyun bloomed in his heart while all he’d ever expected from life was a cold winter and say, I want you to feel this, Kyun, more than anything I want you to feel the warmth from my chest and hold it inside of your hand, please never let it go. Speak into an open, quiet and dusty room that he reminded him of the Han river he used to walk along during simpler times while he waited for his mother to finish the laundry at the all day cleaners. 

He wants to scrape himself from the inside out, pour out the love that burrows deep down until it simmers at his fingertips and press his hands against Changkyun’s chest and say, this is all for you. He wants to scream at sun and say, I don’t need you anymore, I never needed you the way I thought and I’d be able to live without you now, even if it isn’t true. 

He wants to lose himself in quite possibly the quickest way possible, bleed the light from his eyes and let his truth be heard. 

He just can’t. 

He’s too afraid of what it would bring, the worst part of him out that he prays will lay dormant in his stomach and that he’ll never have to make anyone else catch his sickness. 

Praying, something Hoseok has been doing so much more of lately. Trying to reach out and beg, talk to God about Changkyun and say, please, no matter what, I need you to take care of him. (He used to pray he’d never meet his soulmate; not being able to bear the thought of losing himself in another person before he even realized he hadn’t found the person he was until rose pressed into the corners of his eyelids and then he knew, this was it, this was what life was about.) 

He hates himself, because he can’t tell Changkyun any of this because he can barely let himself think it to the heavens and then hope that he’ll never feel this way again. His biggest fear is letting himself before consumed by a person that wasn’t himself, forging his signature in his mind so that he’d never be able to tell the difference between which thought was really his or the one that wasn’t his at all. 

Hoseok can feel, he can feel it so much he swears that he could reach his hand out and hold it in his hand even if it was only for a few seconds, the heat that radiates between Changkyun’s fingertips. The same warmth that can only be touched for a few seconds but felt for hours after, maybe even years. Hoseok just hopes he can make it that far, that he’ll be able to overcome his own selfish desires and that Changkyun will wait for him. 

He knows it’s real, Hoseok knows the love is right there, his for the taking and just waiting to be held. How could he not want that, How could anyone not want that? Are the words he whispers to himself every night he finds sleep on a halfhearted bed long after night fell. He wants Changkyun, more than anything, it just still isn’t enough. (He’s so scared, what if he isn’t enough for Changkyun? What if he drowns and suddenly forgets how to swim.) He’s so gone, he can feel himself slipping away into the cracks that he can’t seem to find. He’ll look himself in the mirror and bring himself to tears and say, where are you? Where have you gone? 

He loves Changkyun, he wants him more than anything else. The truth is bitter and sits on the tip of his tongue heavy, ready to rip his body apart by itself while he crumbles to ground. He wants Changkyun, he’s scared, Hoseok wants. 

Before he can open his lips to speak, Changkyun is already around the corner, a trail of what should’ve been rose following his footsteps. 

(Hoseok lifts his head to the skies after this, ‘Please.’) 

***

Changkyun doesn’t call the next day and Hoseok wonders if this is what it feels like to fall out of love. 

*** 

A few weeks pass, Changkyun keeps up with Hoseok’s groups schedules online, pours his heart into a book he never wants to publish. Heart heavy and heaving, begging to break even more every time he catches a glimpse of Hoseok online. He’s becoming a piece of torn paper, easy to dispose of while his edges begin to soften, ready to be ripped and could shrivel up under too much heat. Somewhere, in the pit of his core Changkyun knows he loves Hoseok, more than anything in the world. 

He sees the photos, the bright smile made by lips that he used to say he woke up to. Hoseok seems to be fine, performing better than he had since he met Changkyun, fans commenting on how much his stages have improved in the last month or so. Changkyun really couldn’t disagree either because they weren’t wrong, Hoseok had never looked better and his voice rolled like velvet. Body moving fluidly, pants hugging his thighs and garters tied around his torso. 

Changkyun wants to cry because, fuck, Hoseok was so pretty. The moles that rested underneath his eyes and lips so thick he could sob. Why didn’t Hoseok come after him? Why didn’t he run behind Changkyun and wrap his arms around his waist, make him stay? 

‘Why didn’t he make me stay, I would’ve, I would’ve, I would’ve’ Is a mantra Changkyun learns to whisper to himself when he wakes up in the middle of the night, face sticky with tears and spit that had rolled down his chin. Body warm from too many sheets while he tries to fill his tummy with something more tangible than the hands of Hoseok he hasn’t felt in what seems like a forever. He lied, Changkyun isn’t okay, he sees color but he doesn’t see Hoseok and he can’t even go to the grocery store without thinking of him. 

He sits in front of a basket of fruit that rests on the kitchen counter every morning, looking at the peaches, sometimes picking one up and rubbing his thumb over one as if it was a call to Hoseok, begging him to come back so Changkyun could be home again. He loves Hoseok, Changkyun loves him and he doesn’t know what to do because his heart belongs to someone who put color in his world only to walk out of it, leaving Changkyun with the clouds, not sticking around to see the rainbow when the sun came out the next morning. Wasn’t it enough? Giving his world to someone he’d stay up for hours to see smile. 

All he has is love for Hoseok, it was never about the color, was never about the fame and was never about the touches. It was about the way Hoseok made Changkyun’s heartbeat move at a pace he could live with for the rest of his life. He was a dream, someone Changkyun wanted to give the world to and lay down with every night, wake up in the morning with and be able to touch. He can’t decide if meeting Hoseok was hell or heaven on work, if it was the work of someone who wanted him to be happy, or at least of the sorts. He pours his heart into the book, writes about having a broken heart and all the ways he can’t fix it. (Take the color, take the color, please, take it away because once he put his finger to pink he was never the same.) 

*** 

It’s been almost three months since the two last spoke, Changkyun is seventy thousand words deep into the novel and Monsta X has just announced their world tour. Tears consume Changkyun’s everyday life, he writes a few letters to Hoseok but isn’t quite sure where he’d ship them because he doesn’t know where Hoseok exactly is. (All he wants is to be close, let Hoseok take him and hold his hand after the thunder rolls in and he’s worried he’ll never be perfect.) 

Mornings spent bent over kitchen sinks, fingers raw from scrubbing dishes too many times over while he pretends he can feel Hoseok’s hand in his hair. He picks up some bad habits while he’s at it too, nights spent at the bar too many times a week and packs of cigarettes drank down like water while he searches for a plug to buy a gram. 

He misses Hoseok, he loves him. Changkyun figures by now, he’s more likely to be robbed than to find peace with the situation. His heart rests in the hands of someone who seems to want to do nothing with him anymore, where is Hoseok and why hasn’t he tried to contact Changkyun yet? Changkyun has nothing left, not for himself, only for Hoseok. His peace offering could be a mix of dwelling apologies and cheeks bitten too hard from the inside out with puffy eyes that rimmed red more often than not. 

He’d die for Hoseok, he’d kill for him. 

*** 

Hoseok finds himself sitting in a makeup chair, the stylists complaining about the bags that have seemed to live underneath his eyes nowadays. He hasn’t slept well in a long time and he misses Changkyun more than he knew he could ever miss anyone. He knows he’s lost, he thinks of the good times and wonders if the younger is thinking about them too. Often, there are days where he spends hours in front of mirrors, perfecting every move possible, scolding himself, anything to get his mind off of Changkyun. 

He worries he’s lost his heartbeat the way he can feel himself slipping through his fingernails bitten and thighs scratched underneath leather pants. He pours back glasses of whiskey every day to help himself get through it, having sex with American girls who didn’t know who he was and all he could think about was Changkyun. 

He regrets it, not following the boy down the street that day, so now he’s thirteen hours away from Seoul and Changkyun, two away from where the love of his life grew up. He wants to call but he doesn’t know what to say, what can you say to the person whose heart you broke? He cares about Changkyun more than anyone he’d ever met, he’d let his whole world go and be destroyed to hold the boy once more. 

The concerts go fast and become a blur, he wonders the last time someone got all of his attention. His mind always glued to Changkyun, somewhere in the back of his head pleading for a second chance and praying that the younger can hear his begging. (He knows that how hard he tries, Changkyun won’t be able to.) 

He wasn’t expecting it, the way Changkyun weakened his heart beyond all barriers with soft smiles and fierce words that belonged on every book stand around. He’s been thinking a lot, more than he ever had in his life, he wants him. He wants the color, he wants the good days and the bad, the hand holding, he wants to write about peaches and tell the whole world who it’s about. 

Undeniably, Changkyun is his muse. 

Hoseok finds himself standing in a field two hours from Detroit and can only smile to himself. He’d found his own way here on his day off, getting lost on the way, but he found it. The town seems to be a little desolate, he’d only seen a single care drive down the dirt road, making him marvel at the way such an intense boy came from a place so calm. The grass crunches underneath his feet, and the sun reaches his hair. 

Hoseok looks around, spotting the peach colored roses Changkyun told him about, right next to an old mailbox painted lavender. The place is beyond beautiful, of course it was, this is where Changkyun came from. Where the younger boy learnt to live, where he took his first steps and where he found his passion for writing. He wants to take Changkyun, hold his hand and listen to the boy talk about his home again, to say it slowly and softly like he had before. Walking past the mailbox, Hoseok spots the field of flowers and quickened his pace. He can’t believe it; Changkyun had described the place perfectly. Quaint and quiet, the sun burning down so perfectly, flowers bright with beach and Hoseok hasn’t ever felt so safe. 

This is it Hoseok thinks, this is the moment where he knows that he’ll do anything to get Changkyun   
back. No one has ever had him quite like Changkyun. Nobody else can have him, not his baby, no one deserved him. His little piece of heaven on earth, warm and ethereal, glowing with love, even in the midst of anger his passion shined greater than anything he’d ever seen in his entire life. He wants Changkyun all to himself, to hold his hand and promise him tomorrow, kiss his face, give him color and turn sweet like honey. 

He’s never wanted to be back in Seoul more. 

***  
Changkyun rolls over on his bed, opening up his phone to only a few random notifications, eyes puffy and face swollen from a rest filled by tears. Monsta X returned to Korea in the early morning, burning the young boy’s heart because his whole entire world is a bus ride away from him but hasn’t called. He glances at the time and notices it’s late afternoon, the sunlight drifting in between his blinds as it dips down towards the earth. Dragging himself from the dirty sheets, he falls to his knees, he loves him, Changkyun loves him. 

He gets too drunk.

***   
Changkyun curses himself as he wakes up in the bed of a hospital room. Eyes sore, he so confused, what happened? Flashes of the night before tear through his mind, and oh fuck, he really did get that drunk didn’t he? He remembers getting to the club, downing his first seven drinks but everything after was just a blur. He’s pulled from his thoughts when a cough comes from the doorframe, expecting it to be a doctor, Changkyun’s eyes widen when he’s meet with Hoseok’s own. He’s beautiful, Changkyun can’t help but notice. His jeans are ripped, shirt loose and tucked halfway in, hair gelled back and moles on full display. The stare is intense, filed with nothing but sorrow and Changkyun can feel his eyes filling with tears before he can stop himself. 

A sob leaves the younger boys mouth and quicker than the tears can follow Hoseok has the boy placed in his lap, holding onto the back of Changkyun’s head while the boy cries into his shoulder. Hoseok feels his chest tighten at the sight of his soulmate sounding so weak, so unlike himself, void of fierceness and strawberry laughs only to be replaced by angst. Changkyun’s hands are dug in tight to Hoseok’s sides, gripping tightly almost as if he was trying to make sure the older wasn’t a mirage. Hoseok continues to shush him, pressing kisses into the crown of his hair while the sobs fade to cries fade to whimpers. 

Teary eyed, Changkyun pulls himself back to look at Hoseok, lips crumpling as he gasped out, “I missed you, ‘Seok, I missed you so much.” 

The apologies tumble out of Hoseok’s mouth at record speed, “I’m so sorry, Changkyun, I love you, I’m so fucking sorry.” 

“Missed you, felt so terrible the whole time. I thought I was going to be okay but I wasn’t.” 

“I was wrong, I shouldn’t have let you leave that day. I should’ve made you stay, I missed you so much, fuck, I missed you.” 

Changkyun nods, pressing his lips to Hoseok’s for the first time in months and he feels the weight of the world lift from his shoulders.


End file.
